Radios, such as combat radios, and other devices provide data communications to external devices using synchronous serial protocols where an external clock is provided to synchronize data communications. Typically, various layers of devices are needed to perform the translation between the synchronous serial protocol of the radio and a Universal Serial Bus (USB) protocol used by most modern computer devices. For instance, to translate to and from the USB protocol and a synchronous serial protocol, such as RS-232, an 8252 Synch, a microprocessor, and a USB to Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) translator are needed. Furthermore, the microprocessor requires specialized software to perform the translation between synchronous and asynchronous. These layers of translation and the use of the microprocessor make conventional translation techniques awkward and costly. Typically, all of these layers of devices require dedicated Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) cards. While these cards exist, these PCI cards are expensive, because very few companies make them and because asynchronous protocols are now nearly ubiquitous when communicating with a computer device. Thus, what are needed are cheaper and more universal ways of translating between the USB protocol and a synchronous serial protocol.